Archive for February, 2011

LAS CRUCES – If you’ve ever stopped at the McDonald’s on El Paseo Road, or just strolled by on the sidewalk, you may have noticed a raucous screeching.It sounds – at first listen – as if a flock of noisy birds must be somewhere nearby, perhaps roosting on the rooftop. But the exact source of the shrill squawking seems a mystery.

“You hear the noise and you look up and say: ‘There’s no birds,’” said Michelle Mendez, 24, of Anthony, N.M., who visited the McDonald’s on El Paseo Road on Tuesday.The screeching has been heard, at times, on the McDonald’s on North Main Street, as well.

If your curiosity has ever been piqued, wonder no more.The mysterious, intermittent noise isn’t real birds. Rather, it’s an audio recording of birds in distress, meant for scaring away pesky fowl such as pigeons, said Keel Price, wildlife biologist and district supervisor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services branch. The agency carries out various types of pest control.

The idea is that the sound of a bird in crisis will seem like a threat, Price said. But he pointed out that the ploy only works for so long before birds become accustomed to it. If the recording plays continuously, he said, the birds more quickly realize that they’re not in danger and become acclimated.

“Even thesmallest-brained of birds can only expend so much energy fleeing false threats,” he said.

To make the devices more effective, it helps to lengthen the amount of the pause between rounds of screeching, Price said. And even better, he said, is to rotate the audio with other non-lethal deterrents, such as “scary-eyed” balloons, fake great horned owls and rubber snakes.

“If people will change them out, they work much longer,” he said. “They need to change these up and rotate them.”

Mike Lavin, the owner of most of the Las Cruces McDonald’s restaurants, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Frank Fiore, district manager for the state Environment Department, which does restaurant inspections, said there’s no regulation against birds on eatery rooftops. But their presence could cause problems if a facility ever had a leak in the roof that carried bird droppings into a kitchen. A roof leak at a Georgia peanut butter processing facility was behind in a massive recall in recent years, he said.

“If there are openings in the ceiling, it’s in the category of violations we’d label as low-risk, but it could actually turn into high-risk, if we had rain water with pigeon feces in it running into a place where food is being prepared.”

Fiore said he didn’t recall any restaurants – whether McDonald’s or not – where that’s been a problem.

Price said air conditioning units on rooftops tend to attract birds, in the summer especially, because they provide shade and water at the same time. Wrapping poultry wire around the base, to keep birds from getting underneath, is a good way to prevent that, he said.

Mendez and her mother said they’d noticed the screeching noises previously when visiting the laundromat across the street from the El Paseo McDonald’s but didn’t realize what it was. After learning it was a bird deterrent, they said they thought it was a good idea, especially at a restaurant setting.

“It’s pretty smart,” Mendez said. “You help keep pigeons away and you keep the disease away.”Audio recordings often are used to scare blackbirds, seagulls and sometimes Canada geese, Price said.

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The landmark Beaux-Arts building, known to some as the Great Library Building or the People’s Palace, was designed by the architects Carrère and Hastings before it opened on May 23, 1911. But a survey in 2006 revealed severe deterioration and soiling of the façade, especially in the Corinthian column capitals, lion head keystones and scroll modillions. The architecture and engineering firm that did the survey, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., said that the deterioration was mostly sugaring due to acid raid, diesel exhaust and pigeon guano, among other things. There was also roof damage, oxidation of the building’s bronze doors and cracking on sculptures. Birds had made the façade their home. The library decided to try to restore it. “Our intention was to make the building look like it was when it was built,” said LeClerc.

After millions of dollars were raised, an architectural and conservation team set out to repair 7,000 instances of deterioration in 2008 on the 150,000 square-foot façade. Over three years, some 18,000 square feet of bird netting was installed. “Over 1,000 cracks were repaired. Over 2,000 hand-carved marble patches, or dutchmen, were installed and nearly 900 marble balusters were replaced,” said LeClerc.

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